Chapter Twenty-Six
T wo hours passed before the carriage arrived in Dulwich, traveling from Cheapside across Blackfriars Bridge and through the small villages dotting the countryside south of the Thames. Two hours of mostly long stretches of silence broken only by infrequent attempts at making small talk that went nowhere, questions Sophie asked about Cora and Ruby and their lives since coming to London…two hours of curt replies from Cora.
Sophie took no offense. Cora’s brusqueness wasn’t because she was being rude or didn’t want to share information but because she was distracted with thoughts of seeing her daughter again. What mother, who cared about her child, wouldn’t be? Every inch of Cora showed her agitation, from the tense way she sat on the bench to the way her fingers clenched at the rug that covered her legs. She stared out the window, but Sophie knew she wasn’t seeing the countryside. She was imagining her little girl, what she would look like now, how big she would be…how she would react to seeing her mother again.
But Ruby wouldn’t recognize her, Sophie knew. Her baby had been less than a year old when Cora gave her up. The wet nurse was the only mother the girl had ever known.
“Many families send their children out to stay with wet nurses during the first few years of their lives,” Sophie reminded her quietly. “They’re raised away from home until they’re nearly five years old, when boys are breeched and girls are old enough to mind themselves in the family household.”
Cora swung her gaze inside the compartment to stare at Sophie as she sat across from her on the opposite bench but said nothing to either argue or agree.
“Those children are welcomed back into their families, and they all go along just fine. So will you and your daughter.”
Cora nodded, distracted, and turned back toward the window.
Sophie’s heart sank. She hadn’t convinced Cora that all would be fine. But then, Sophie hadn’t believed Shay, either, when he had assured her that Malcolm’s accusations would come to nothing.
The hackney rolled into Dulwich and slowed, the jarvey following the directions Sophie had given him to a low row of weavers’ cottages next to the village green. Three stories tall, they stood like soldiers at attention, with their white stone facades gleaming in the pale winter sunlight, made even brighter by their black doors and window trim.
“Why are you doing this?” Cora asked, her nervous voice shaking as it pierced the silence. “Why would you and His Grace help me and my daughter?” She shook her head. “It’s one thing to bribe me for my testimony, but to do this… Why would you even acknowledge that Ruby exists?”
“Because she’s family.”
“Not your family. Not according to the courts or the Church.”
“The courts and the Church are wrong.” She added beneath her breath, “Again.”
But her words didn’t satisfy Cora, who waited for a different answer.
“Because Shay and I both know what it’s like to grow up without a mother,” Sophie admitted as gently as she could, despite her blunt words. She turned to look out the window and added quietly, “I would never let that happen to another child if I could prevent it.” The carriage stopped in front of the last white cottage, and the driver rapped his knuckles against the roof. Sophie cleared her throat to force away a tightening knot of emotion and announced, “We’ve arrived.”
Sophie slipped from the carriage and took a deep breath. The wet nurse, Mrs. Sneed, and her family lived in the last cottage, where her husband weaved cloth in the attic and she added to their household income by taking in babies from the Foundling Hospital. Sophie hadn’t lied to Cora. Many mothers of the gentry often placed their children in the homes of wet nurses where they were cared for until around the age of five before being brought home to their true families.
But as Sophie cast an assessing gaze over the little cottage, she knew she would never be one of those mothers. To give up her baby, even if only temporarily… never .
“Are you ready?” she asked.
When Cora gave a jerking nod, Sophie linked her arm with hers and led the trembling woman forward toward the cottage’s black door.
She knocked, then mumbled, “Just breathe, Cora. And remember, you don’t have to say anything. Let me do the talking.”
The woman took a deep breath as instructed, but it emerged as a jagged sigh, as rough as shaken gravel.
Before Sophie could offer more assurances, the door flew open, and a short, portly woman in a blue dress, grey apron, and dirty cap squinted at them in the sunlight. “Aye? Busy as bees in here.” She jerked a nod over her shoulder toward the house’s main room that served as kitchen, dining room, and parlor, and at the children whose shadowy figures Sophie could just make out in the dim interior. “What you want, then? Hurry up. Don’t have time for talkin’.”
“Then we won’t be long.” Sophie forced a tight smile. “We’re in Dulwich to see Mrs. Sneed. We were told this is her cottage.”
“’Tis. I’m the misses.” A crash reverberated inside the cottage, and the woman let out an impatient breath and yelled into the room behind her, “Get away from the pantry, you little devils, or I’ll tan your hides again!”
Sophie’s heart skipped. Oh, this was not good. From the way Cora stiffened beside her, she recognized that, too.
“Well?” Mrs. Sneed demanded.
“We didn’t mean to interrupt your meal, but—”
“Ain’t no meal.” She blinked as if Sophie were mad. “Not for those devils, not today anyways. They’re being punished for causing commotion.”
“You’re punishing them by withholding food?” Sophie asked carefully as a baby began to wail. “Even the babies?”
The woman snorted. “Got to learn to behave sometime. If’n they’re old enough to crawl, they’re old ’nough to learn their lesson ’bout behavin’.” She impatiently narrowed her eyes. “Now, what do you want?”
“I’m Mrs. Seamus Douglass,” Sophie told the woman as imperiously as possible while hiding her rank as duchess. Then she lied, “I’m with the Foundling Hospital’s administrative board. This is my assistant, Miss White. We’ve come to conduct a routine visit to check on the children who have been placed into your care.” She arched a brow. “You don’t mind if we come inside to inspect, do you?”
The blood drained from the woman’s face, and her mouth dropped open. “I…I…”
“According to my notes,” Sophie said as she looked at the paper the investigator had written, “you care for three of the hospital’s babies and another three of your own, all under ten. My! That’s an awful lot of children.” She tucked the note into her coat pocket. “May we see them?”
Mrs. Sneed’s mouth gaped open and closed like a fish’s, the words not coming in her shock. She was too stunned to stop Sophie from pushing past her and into the cottage, with Cora close on her heels.
Sophie stopped in the middle of the room to let her eyes adjust to the dim interior. When they did, she didn’t like what she saw.
Dirt and dust covered every surface that wasn’t already darkened by grime and soot. Dirty clothes and linens lay piled in the corner on the floor, where an orange-colored cat with matted fur had made its bed. Dried mud lay scattered across the bare floor where the six children now sat, and a horrid stench leeched from the cabinet in the corner. Something small and dark skittered quickly into a hole in the floor near the stairway—Sophie was afraid to look more closely.
Even those things that Sophie could have said were serviceable about the room—the wooden settle in front of the fire, a table and chairs, a dresser holding crockery and tableware—seemed hard and cold, and seemingly covered with the same layer of dust and grime as the rest of the room.
Nothing about this place was clean or cared for.
The children were the worst of it, though. Sophie’s heart broke as she slowly approached them with a bright, forced smile. All six of them sat on the cold floor in a line, cowered by Mrs. Sneed’s earlier threat to beat them. God only knew how many times she’d done just that, and based upon the dark patches on the stretches of arms and legs not covered by their filthy clothing, she’d done it often and recently. Six pairs of young eyes stared back at her, wide with confusion and fear, as Mrs. Sneed scurried across the room to Sophie’s side.
“If I had known you were coming, I would have tidied up a bit,” the woman explained, her demeanor changed from the confrontational way she’d answered the door to one of complete acquiescence. “But you know how it is with a house full of young’uns and my husband up in the attic at the loom.”
She gestured toward the stairs, but Sophie couldn’t hear any work being done upstairs. Most likely, the husband had simply fled the house for the day to be away from his wife and the children, who were even now on the verge of bursting into tears. When the boys were older, she knew, they would hit back. But until then, they were at the woman’s mercy.
So was Ruby.
Sophie slid her gaze from child to child, searching each one’s face. “Which of these are the Foundling Hospital’s children?”
“The three youngest, there at the end.” Mrs. Sneed gestured nervously at them. “You can see for yourselves what good care I’ve been taking of them.”
What Sophie could see was that they had all been neglected, beaten, most likely not properly fed, certainly not properly clothed, and allowed to run wild like a bunch of feral kittens.
“The Hospital has never sent anyone to inspect my house before,” Mrs. Sneed half-muttered. “I don’t understand why you bothered to come all the way out to—”
“All under five, then?” Sophie pressed. She could feel Cora peering over her shoulder. “Still nursing?”
“Oh no, ma’am! They’re all old ’nough now to be on real food, ’cept the babe at the far end. She’ll be at the breast until summer.”
Sophie nodded, but her attention was on the little girl in the middle. She knew the moment she saw the girl’s dirty face… Ruby . There was no possibility that her paternity was a mistake or that Cora White had been lying. She looked exactly like John—same eyes, same stub of a nose, same little chin that tucked back toward her neck—so much like John that Sophie caught her breath.
Mrs. Sneed felt her surprise. “Is something wrong, my lady? I do my best to clean and clothe them, but they just get filthy as soon as I put them down.”
Sophie doubted that. Judging from the looks of her clothes, Ruby hadn’t been properly washed or changed in days, and the stench of dirt and urine that seeped from her proved it. So did the matted clumps of dark blond hair that clung to her head, the smears of dirt across both cheeks, the dirt under her tiny fingernails and toenails…easy to see since she was barefoot, her feet undoubtedly freezing on the cold floor. Beneath the dirt, Sophie noted what looked suspiciously like bruises.
“I’m certain you did your best, Mrs. Sneed,” Sophie muttered sarcastically as she reached out to touch the little girl’s cheek, only for Ruby to cower in fear. If there were any doubts left in her that she and Shay needed to take responsibility for the girl’s care and ensure she was placed back into her mother’s arms, this moment vanquished them all. “Unfortunately, your best is simply not good enough.”
The wet nurse’s mouth fell open in shock. “I have never —”
“And you will never again , if I can help it.” Sophie ignored Mrs. Sneed and called to Cora over her shoulder. “We’ll be leaving now. And we’ll be taking all three of the Hospital’s children back to London with us. Miss White, would you please help me take them to the carriage?”
Without waiting for an answer, Sophie swept Ruby into her arms to hand her over to her mother, but the little girl’s arms wrapped around her neck so tightly Sophie couldn’t make her release her hold without hurting her. So Sophie simply gestured a free hand at the remaining toddler and baby. Emboldened by Sophie’s determination, Cora lifted the baby into her arms and took the oldest by the hand to lead the little boy from the cottage.
“Now, just one moment!” Mrs. Sneed’s indignant voice rose to a fevered pitch. Not that she cared about the children, but because what Sophie and Cora were doing would be the end of her employment with the Hospital. Forever, if Sophie had her way. “You don’t have the right to just take them babes like this!”
She was right about that. What Sophie was doing was kidnapping, according to the definition. But she also prayed that being a duchess would allow her to get away with such brazenness, especially once the Hospital administrators and board were informed of the conditions here. Surely, they would never have allowed the children to remain here if they had known, and as soon as Sophie and Cora returned the other two children to the hospital, the administrators would find them a new and better place to live.
As for Ruby, the little girl was smart enough to recognize help when she saw it and refused to loosen her chokingly tight hold around Sophie’s neck. They wouldn’t have been able to leave her behind even if they’d tried.
“You can file a complaint directly with the hospital director, if you’d like,” Sophie called out as she walked quickly toward the door behind Cora and the other two children. “I am certain he will investigate further and reinstate the children into your care if he disagrees with me. Until then, you will need to communicate directly with the hospital.” She herded Cora and her two charges out the door toward the waiting carriage. She paused in the doorway to give one last warning—and give time for Cora and the two children to reach the carriage and climb inside. “You haven’t lost your position… yet. But if you do not change your ways, then I will have no choice but to tell them how unkempt your cottage is and how poorly used the children. Including your own. I’m certain the authorities would be interested in hearing of it.” She arched a brow with as much haughtiness as she could summon, both to intimidate the woman and to take a quick glance to make certain Cora and the babes were securely ensconced in the hackney so they could quickly make their escape. “Good day, Mrs. Sneed!”
As Sophie hurried toward the carriage, the woman let out such an ear-splitting cry of fury and indignation that the sound drowned out all other noise from the little village. Sophie shuddered but didn’t look back. Let her pitch a fit. Let her wail and cry and gnash her teeth. Sophie couldn’t care less. She’d saved Ruby and the other two little ones, and she’d make certain all three were placed into proper, loving homes.
A strong hand grabbed her shoulder from behind and yanked her to a stop.
“Well, well—what have we here?”
The raspy voice curled down Sophie’s spine like icy fingers, chilling her blood in its wake. For one long, frightening moment, she couldn’t move, as frozen as the mud puddles at her feet. Not daring to look back, her eyes darted ahead toward Cora as the young woman poked her head out of the carriage compartment. A terrified expression darkened Cora’s face. Sophie knew without having to turn around—
“Lord Malcolm,” she forced out and somehow kept her teeth from chattering. Tightening her arms around Ruby, she turned to face him. “Awfully far from St James’s for you, isn’t it?”
“Don’t play daft with me,” he sneered, his voice as frigid as the winter’s day. “You know why I’m here. Same as you.” His beady eyes fixed on Ruby. Sophie knew he recognized John in her, just as she had. “I want that child.”
Over his shoulder, Sophie saw a town coach waiting by the footpath and two large men standing guard, the collars of their coarse jackets pulled up against their necks and threadbare tweed caps perched on their heads. Not servants. Hired thugs.
“You can’t have her,” Sophie managed to force past her trembling lips. “I will not let her go!”
“Fine.” He smiled icily. “Then I’ll take you both.”
He gestured at the two men, and one hurried forward, his hands clenching.
Sophie turned to run toward the hackney, but the man was too quick. He reached her before she’d barely taken a full stride, grabbed her around the waist and hauled her to the waiting town coach. Sophie fought as hard as she could, kicking and elbowing, but she didn’t dare loosen her hold on Ruby, who screamed in fear.
The thug threw her into the town coach. She twisted her shoulder at the last moment to keep from landing on Ruby, slamming with a hard thud in a heap on the floor. She bit down a whimper of pain.
“You’ll swing for this!” she promised through teeth clenched, only for the man to laugh in response.
“Stop your wailing,” Malcolm ordered as he stepped inside the coach and settled onto the bench with a kick to her ribs. The door slammed shut after him, and the carriage lurched into motion, forcing the two brutes to scramble to grab onto the carriage and flung themselves onto it before they were left behind.
“If you harm me or this child, you’ll go to prison,” Sophie promised, still sitting on the compartment floor. Her eyes locked on Malcolm as she rocked the screaming little girl in her arms. “I’ll make certain of it.”
“I don’t think so.” Malcolm pulled a thin, sharp knife from his coat sleeve and rested it on his thigh. “I wouldn’t get any ideas of attacking me if I were you.” His eyes gleamed. “It would be a shame if you ended up as scarred as your husband.”
Sophie wasn’t afraid of his threats. Instead, she was filled with hot rage.
Still holding the wailing toddler in her arms, she climbed up onto the seat. If she couldn’t stop the carriage—or safely jump from it with the little girl in her arms—at least she would try to keep track of wherever they were going…and keep her eyes open for any chance at escape. She would not let Malcolm get away with this, not without a fight.
“You must be stupid to think I didn’t know why you and Seamus were in London,” Malcolm drawled, his voice filled with venom. “As soon as I heard you’d both left Ravenscroft, I knew what you’d planned. So I came here to beat you to it. And succeeded.” His eyes narrowed on Ruby, the little girl continuing to scream even as she buried her face in Sophie’s shoulder in an attempt to hide from the bad man sitting with them. “I’ll keep that little whelp with me until her mother agrees to testify against Seamus, until she agrees to state under oath that she saw him kill his brother in cold blood, and that he did it for you and the dukedom.”
“You won’t succeed,” she rasped and placed a calming kiss to Ruby’s head.
“But I will. Already my men are convincing that woman to testify on my behalf. Once she signs her name to her statement, I’ll bring the girl back to her, send them both away with a little prize to keep her silence until the title is settled on me and Seamus is either dangling by his neck or on his way to Australia.” He callously shrugged a shoulder. “Doesn’t matter which to me.”
“And if Cora doesn’t agree to that, if she goes to the authorities?”
“Then it won’t be a simple kidnapping that happens to her child.”
He meant murder. Tightening her arms around Ruby, she swallowed hard to keep down the rising bile in her throat. She didn’t dare utter the dark thought that crept into her head…that she was now a witness to his machinations and could swear to the truth of what he was doing. That he would have to kill her, too, to keep her silent.
How easy that would be, too, if he and his hired henchmen dragged her into the countryside where no one would see or hear her shouts for help.
She could not let that happen. So she turned back toward the window and tried to calm the little girl huddled fearfully in her arms. Her mind raced to plot out a way to escape.
The carriage had slowed, bogged down by the half-frozen road filled with mud puddles, slush, and snowdrifts. If the place he was taking them was very far away, then they would have to stop to change teams. And soon. The town coach with Malcolm’s crest proudly emblazoned on the door was too heavy to go more than a dozen miles down the weathered road before tiring out the horses. They would have to stop at a posting inn, and when they did, Sophie planned on making her move. Or at least not go down without a fight.
So she settled back against the squabs, placed the little girl on the seat beside her so she could continue to soothe her, and waited. The afternoon was passing quickly, and she prayed they stopped before nightfall, when the cover of darkness might ruin her chance to escape. After all, she would never be able to outrun Malcolm and his henchmen, not with a child in her arms. No, her best bet was to cause the biggest scene she could and pray that others came to her rescue. After all, a screaming woman with a wailing child, both crying out at the tops of their lungs, would certainly draw all kinds of unwanted attention.
She hoped.
After an hour, Ruby had cried herself to sleep, and the welcomed silence gave Sophie the peace to collect her thoughts and her resolve. She would have only one chance, and she had to be ready. She would have to act quickly, scream her head off, and—
Gunshots pierced the silence, followed by shouts and the thundering of hooves. The team jerked into a run as a whip cracked over their heads. Malcolm was tossed back against the squabs.
Now! Sophie grabbed for the knife in Malcolm’s hand.
He gasped in surprise but held firm, then slashed it forward toward Sophie with a growl, even as her hands attempted to wrestle it away. The blade slid across the heel of her hand and sliced into the soft flesh. She let out a cry of pain but refused to let go. With all the determination she possessed, she bit his wrist as hard as she could.
Malcolm howled and let go of the knife just enough that Sophie could twist it from his grasp. Her hand wrapped around the handle so fiercely her knuckles turned white, and her ears reverberated with the pounding of blood coursing through her veins and the screams of the terrified child. But she never moved her eyes from Malcolm as she held the knife ready between them and wrapped her free arm around the little girl, tucking her safely between her body and the seat. He would have to attack her to get to the child, and Sophie would kill him if he tried.
“You bitch!” he bit out as he wiped the blood from his wrist onto his trousers. He lunged toward her, only to find the knife blade slashing up beneath his chin. He sucked in a breath between clenched teeth and collapsed back against the seat. “You’ll regret this!”
Sophie kept the knife pointed at him. Never.
A rider on a horse flashed past the coach at breakneck speed toward the tiring team whose pace slowed rapidly despite the incessant crack of the whip over their heads. Sophie darted her gaze outside just long enough to recognize Chase Maddox, Duke of Greysmere. And behind him, following on his heels—
“Shay!”
He rode low on his horse, urging the gelding into a flat-out run as he sped past Chase toward the front of the team. He leapt from his mount onto the lead carriage horse in a bold attempt to grab the harness and stop the team. The crack of whip split the air as the driver struck the metal-edged tip at Shay, joined by a furious curse that tore from one of the men’s lips as the team began to slow. Chase jumped from his racing horse onto the carriage, leaving the two riderless horses to race behind, and grabbed the startled driver. The henchman’s body plunged toward the ground and landed in a heap in a snow bank at the side of the road, left to curl up in pain as Chase pulled the team to a full stop.
Malcolm made a desperate grab for Ruby.
“No, you bastard!” Sophie slashed the knife at him and stopped him. “You will never take her!”
With a fierce growl of fury, Malcolm shoved open the door. He leapt outside, then ran as fast as he could toward the two saddle horses who had halted behind the coach.
“Stop him!” Sophie shouted and followed out the door after Malcolm, leaving Ruby safely behind in the carriage. “He’s getting away!”
Shay leapt off the carriage horse and hurled himself across the short stretch of wintry ground like a cannonball just as Malcolm put his foot into the stirrup to mount the gelding. Shay grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him to the ground. He jumped on top of Malcolm and began to pummel him with pounding fists until his uncle lay on the ground, unmoving except for the rise and fall of his chest. He knew enough not to fight back.
Shay’s arms fell to his sides as Sophie approached cautiously, his broad chest heaving hard from exertion.
Through gritted teeth, Shay ground out, “I’m stopping only because I’m not a murderer.” He leaned down to hiss an icy warning into his uncle’s ear, “The next time you try to harm the people I love, I won’t stop.”
He pulled off his neck cloth and tied Malcolm’s hands so he couldn’t escape, cinching the knots with a hard yank. Then he gestured for Chase to lock his uncle in the carriage.
With one last hard shove of Malcolm into the ground, he climbed to his feet. He turned toward Sophie and silently spread open his arms.
She rushed into his embrace with a soft sob. Shay folded his arms around her and held her close, tightly enough she could feel the pounding of his heart against her bosom.
“Are you all right?” he demanded, setting her away just far enough to check over her for any signs of wounds. He saw the blood dripping from the shallow cut on her hand, and Sophie felt new rage boil up inside him. “He did this?”
“I did that trying to escape.” She wrapped her arms around his waist to keep him with her. “It’s nothing. What matters I that Ruby and I are safe.” Her voice choked from intense emotion. “You saved us.”
His shoulders sank with relief, and he wrapped his arms around her, nuzzling his scarred cheek against her hair.
A high-pitched cry reached them only a few seconds before Ruby threw herself against Sophie. Her little arms clasped fiercely around Sophie’s legs, and she buried her face in her skirts.
Shay placed his large hand on the girl’s head, a gesture that was both soothing and paternal. She knew he would do anything to protect Ruby, just as he had sworn to do for her.
Sophie cupped his face between her hands and placed a kiss to his lips, then slid her mouth back to whisper into his ear. “This proves it, without any doubt,” she said with such determination and belief that she trembled from it. “You are a hero, Shay, in every way, and you deserve me and my love.” Please, God—let him believe that!
She heard him whisper, the soft words piercing her heart—“I do love you, Sophie. I always have…always will.” His arms tightened around her, as if he never wanted to let her go. “I love you, and nothing will ever keep us apart.”
Tears slipped down her cheek. She could do nothing more than cling to him as sobs of happiness overwhelmed her.